What to do to avoid malware, save personal files

Thousands of people in countries around the world are dealing with a massive cyber attack, but what’s the best way to protect your computers and personal files?

Shawn Peterson with PC Place in Regina emphasized backing up files.

“We can definitely salvage the hardware, the operating system can be wiped, it can be reloaded and the computer can be made useable again, but if you don’t have backups to your data unfortunately you’re at the mercy of the ransom,” he explained, saying it’s a problem they try and educate people about all the time.

Failure to do so can mean family pictures or business files being forever lost.

The most recent ransomware dubbed ‘WannaCry’ is said to have affected people from 150 countries since Friday. People’s files are held unless a ransom is paid.

Peterson doesn’t advise paying any kind of money.

“The chances of actually paying a ransom and getting your files back are almost low, nor do we recommend paying a ransom because it’s just going to finance the next wave of attacks,” he said.

Peterson added if you haven’t backed up your files there’s little you can do.

“It’s a low probability that you’re going to be able to recover your files unless you got a backup but because of the way this thing spreads you’re going to want to turn your computer off immediately whether it’s a corporate network or whether it’s your home or personal computer.”

He said initial infection will usually come through spam email and clicking on a bogus link or attachment on something like payment information from a financial institution or through something like a parcel delivery service about an order.